


The Fox's Part-time Dogfather

by Amalys_Lux_Tenebrae



Series: "A Little Something Extra Dark " [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: A Little Something Extra Dark, Gen, Shinobi are not nice people, Sleep Deprivation, description of smothering, descriptions of death rites, quietly angry Kakashi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 05:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15834603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amalys_Lux_Tenebrae/pseuds/Amalys_Lux_Tenebrae
Summary: A slight change in the timeline. A knot in the weft of fate.What happens when Sarutobi doesn't announce that Naruto is the prison of the fox?Think things will be better? Think again.





	The Fox's Part-time Dogfather

**Author's Note:**

> I'm breaking my own rule here and posting this story as it is written, mainly because I had no plans to expand this 'verse any further. And then KenzieP happened. Yup, I'm blaming you, KenzieP, for this whole damned 'verse. Enjoy.
> 
> THis work was written to explore alternative ideas in the Naruto Universe. No money is being made from this work and all rights are held by the proper authorities.

Sarutobi stared down at the scrap of flesh swaddled in his arms, his eyes focussed on the face of the sleeping child. He breathed out a frustrated sigh and mentally shook himself, he needed to concentrate on the good of the village, but it was oh so hard to do. His fingers tangled and twisted in the edge of the soft swaddling material, the only thing that was betraying his agitation was being hidden by the cause of it. 

Minato was dead, as was Kushina, and Sarutobi was finding it difficult not to place all of the blame on his admittedly brilliant but heart-led successor. Sarutobi’s darling Biwako had been drafted to oversee the birth of Kushina’s first child, but something had gone severely wrong and now Biwako was dead, Konoha was decimated and all that was left was this… this… Sarutobi’s chest clenched.

He just knew he was going to get stuck with the stupid hat again as there was no-one of any rank who would be able to competently fill the difficult shoes of being the Fire Shadow. Danzo was preoccupied with his… project (Sarutobi knew that Root still existed, even though it was supposed to be disbanded. But the ‘black market’ cash should help Konoha to get back on its feet again.) Orochimaru had left for places unknown and Tsunade was off pickling her insides and brain somewhere in Mist. Jiraiya would be laughed at by the leaders of the other Elemental Nations; it was one of the things that made him such an excellent spymaster, but the Sannin’s well-founded reputation as a pervert was the biggest bar to Jiraiya taking the thrice bedamned hat off of his hands.

The foul scent of burnt chakra, decaying bodies and ashes permeated the village as the citizens, both ninja and civilian picked through rubble, hoping against hope that loved ones were only trapped, only unconscious. Not dead, not unless the body was laid out in the daylight for all to see. All of the Leaf was trapped in the horror of unexpected and unplanned death and it made for a hushed village, even the animals in the surrounding forest were uneasy and silent, too much violence had happened in their demesne. All the colour seemed to have been leached out of the village and within the walls it appeared that even the sun has dimmed. 

Sarutobi knows of his reputation as an inspirational leader, a god amongst shinobi, but he was not a good man, nor was he a nice one and the source of all his current troubles was sleeping quietly in his arms. Intellectually, he knew it was not the child’s fault, but his battered, scarred heart and shinobi soul laid the blame squarely at the feet of little Naruto.

He couldn’t bring himself to make an inspiring speech, or to inform the council and citizens of the village that the child was the container for the nine-tailed fox or the legacy of the Fourth. Let them believe that the child was just another orphan, anything else would be tantamount to inviting extra attention from the other villages, especially Iwa.

No longer able to bear looking at the innocent face, he handed the child off to the matron of the Konoha orphanage.

“See that it survives.” 

Sarutobi turned and strode to his tower, at least it is most likely that it will be his tower again, with other Hokage to watch over him and where he can overlook the whole of the village, it’s metaphorical centre. He’s been too old for this for years now, he’s given his all for this village and now his heart is dead.

A couple of citizens who were picking up treasures from a collapsed building heard and paid attention, if the Third was upset and annoyed with the child, perhaps he knew something more than the rest. Perhaps the Third was angry with what might be the anthropomorphic personification of the nine-tailed demon, newly born, and perhaps it would be best for all concerned if the creature was shunned completely. The child was an albatross strung around the necks of the whole village; getting rid of it was impossible, but keeping it just invited more death and destruction. Konoha was a ninja village and it thrived on secrets and rumours, so it took less than three days for the whole civilian side of the village to wordlessly agree.

⌘

It took Dog five days of hard work before he had time to lay down his mask and ninjato, and another two to eat, sleep and catch up on banking and paperwork. The atmosphere in the village was morose but industrious, a lot of the debris had been cleared and the dead had been removed to the civilian plot outside the walls, or carefully wrapped and interred in clan mausoleums. Some, like the Uchiha preferred to cremate their dead, when possible. Others interred the corpse into a locked room until a quorum of family could sever spines and remove hearts, as even the dead were valuable for some types of jutsu; it was not unknown for other ninja villages to try and grab corpses for use in techniques and the Village Hidden in the Waterfall, especially, had a bad reputation for skin-walkers and heart-stealers. 

Wandering the paths of the village, it didn’t take long for Kakashi to pick up the most recent gossip of the community, the benign conversations carried little of any real importance, mostly tales of the reconstruction and the miraculous recovery of long trapped individuals. There was someone new that he wanted to meet and so he turned his path towards the place where the clanless children of the lost were housed.

The orphanage was a neat and tidy place of solid construction and white painted walls, resting against the escarpment that made up the base of the Hokage Rock. The garden was large with a climbing frame and sand-pit and fenced all around with brightly painted fences. It all looked very wholesome. Inside, the walls were not quite as clean, with childish artwork and script hastily scrubbed off, but the reception was tidy. The supervisor behind the counter twirled a long strand of plum coloured hair about her narrow fingers as she wrote, she looked tired, and a pile of paperwork I the out-tray showed that she had been working hard.

“I’d like to visit with Naruto, please.”

Dark grey eyes stared blankly at him for a moment and he thought that maybe she was going to refuse him.

“I need to see your licence and you need to sign in, visiting hours are from one pm until three. Potential adopters can apply for more time.” Her voice was nearly a monotone, worn thin by boredom exhaustion and repetition. Her badge reads “ Taji, Kyoko” and he made a mental note.

Kakashi handed over his licence, he found it amusing that the only place that updates the identification image regularly is the mission dispatch office. The picture on his was the same one that was taken for his genin registration, although for him it almost made no difference, he’s just bigger and has a sharingan eye on the left side… plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Skinny fingers jotted down the details and then hit a bell hidden behind the papers. 

“Asami will be with you momentarily.” The girl who rounded the corner was obviously named in the vain hope that she would grow into a morning beauty, but whatever beauty she may have held had been ravaged by long hours and boring drudgery made worse by the influx of a greater than usual number of orphans. 

“Follow me.” Her steps are dragging and slow until, from a room off to one side at the back of the orphanage, screaming echoes off of the plain walls.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

Both Kakashi and Asami broke into a run, Kakashi’s trained ground eating lope meant that he got to the room and through the door before Asami has got half way down the hall.

The sight in front of Kakashi broke his heart and chilled his soul.

A plump, dark-haired, dark-eyed older lady was deliberately smothering the week-old Naruto with a pillow. Tears streamed down her face as she yelled at the tiny mite in the cot.

Yanking her away and throwing the pillow across the room, Kakashi lifted the floppy child out and into his arms. Naruto’s lips were blue, and his eyes were wide and tear stained, with small broken capillaries that threaded through the white, but he managed to haul in a shuddering breath before letting out a strained and hoarse whimper. Relief surged through him, he wasn’t too late! Kakashi shuddered as it occurred to him what might have happened if he’d avoided visiting for much longer. Abandoned and orphaned babies died all the time, it even had a proper medical term, ‘failure to thrive’ and no-one would have questioned it.

Asami had grabbed the other woman and was berating her in a fierce and hurried harsh whisper, and muted sobs and whispered explanations could be heard in reply. Kakashi tuned out the ‘discussion’, it would be the work of a few minutes to find out who she was and where she lived, and then he would be able to do a proper interrogation in his own time. He was even prepared to forego the mission payment for the privilege. 

Naruto turned his glistening cyan eyes to investigate what could be seen of Kakashi’s face, before his eyelids drooped and the child was asleep in moments.

“How? How did you get him to sleep?”

Now that he had time to properly look at her, the woman seemed vaguely Uchiha with pale skin and charcoal dark eyes, but he doubted she was. No self-respecting Uchiha would be caught doing something so civilian as volunteering at an orphanage. Still-wet milk stains trailed down the front of her soft green tee-shirt. Dark pouches accentuated exhausted charcoal eyes and her skin was dry and tight. 

“I’ve tried everything to get him to sleep, he just cries and cries, and he won’t shut up. My baby died in the Kyuubi attack and I volunteered to feed any new-born orphans. I was happy to help! But he needs feeding every two hours and doesn’t sleep in between. I just want to sleep. I just wanted to make him go to sleep. Please let me sleep!”

Sleep deprivation was an insidious thing Kakashi knew. It twisted the way you thought and made even the stupidest of ideas seem reasonable.

But it was no excuse for attempted murder.

Asami shuffled closer.

“Please don’t be angry with Kasumi.”

“Angry?” Kakashi sighed. “I’m not angry. I’m so far past angry that words do not do it justice. Apocalyptic sounds about right.” His voice was even, calm and light. “I suggest you get her out of here and to the police before I do something that I won’t regret in the slightest.” He rocked the baby, the motion completely unconscious and natural. “I’d go now, if I were you. Whilst my arms are still full.”

Asami pulled the delirious Kasumi out of the room and Kakashi tucked Naruto onto his shoulder, his little head with the sunlight blond curls fit neatly beside his chin. Making his way back to the reception, he waited for a couple of seconds as Asami signs both Kasumi and herself out.

“Miss Taji?”

The plum haired lady jumped slightly and then glared at him from under her lashes.

“What?” her voice was curt but that was not surprising as he held her job security in his hands.

“Where can I find food for him?” Kakashi rubbed a masked cheek gently over the silky curls.

“Oh! Um. We have pre-made bottles, they’re in the kitchen. I would show you but we’re down a staff-member and a volunteer.” She went on to describe the route to the kitchen, relying on his ninja training to remember the simple details.

“I’ll go do that then.”

Half asleep, Naruto guzzled the milk and promptly belched so loudly that Kakashi was shocked that such a thunderous noise came from something so small. All he could do was laugh when it happened for a second time.

By this time Asami was back and she poked her head in to the room for a moment.

“Visiting time is over, Mr. Hatake. Please feel free to come back and help with Naruto.”

As he left the orphanage, he realised that he hadn’t felt this relaxed in years and he decided to make this a regular part of his in-village routine. It was a shame that he wouldn’t be able to adopt Naruto out of the system as work was no place for a baby. At least this way he would be able to make sure that Naruto would have stories of his parents and someone to watch over him.

This worked for just over three years, until Kakashi got sent on a mission that lasted six months.

When he got back, that cheerful ray of sunshine and chaos known as Naruto was nowhere to be found and the orphanage disclaimed all knowledge of his whereabouts. Kakashi spent a high proportion of his free time in the years that followed trying to find out what happened and searching in and around Konoha, all the while praying that the child was not in Danzo’s grasp.


End file.
